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HRogge Wrote:Bob Schroeck wrote:Quote:
No. Fenspace is part of the same metacontinuity as Drunkard's Walk, and resurrections are possible in at least some of the worlds Doug visits.
I disagree on this. Fenspace is (according all I have seen here on the Fenspace forum AND on the wiki) a project of its own. We are not restricted by anything external. If you disagree, then you have to ignore the Catalog in its entirety. Because it is based on the package of technologies gifted to Sylia Stingray by Legion in Drunkard's Walk II, brought to Fenspace by Lisa "Sailor Loon" Vanette and her companions, who are following Doug and who arrived in Fenspace because Doug was in Fenspace and helped get Stellvia up and running. As documented in Legend of Galactic Girls. If the Catalog exists, Fenspace is part of the same metacontinuity as DW. In fact, as that linked diagram indicates, Fenspace has been considered part of that metacontinuity for the last five years. Quod erat demonstrandum, baby.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Bob Schroeck Wrote:HRogge Wrote:Bob Schroeck wrote:Quote:
No. Fenspace is part of the same metacontinuity as Drunkard's Walk, and resurrections are possible in at least some of the worlds Doug visits.
I disagree on this. Fenspace is (according all I have seen here on the Fenspace forum AND on the wiki) a project of its own. We are not restricted by anything external. If you disagree, then you have to ignore the Catalog in its entirety. Because it is based on the package of technologies gifted to Sylia Stingray by Legion in Drunkard's Walk II, brought to Fenspace by Lisa "Sailor Loon" Vanette and her companions, who are following Doug and who arrived in Fenspace because Doug was in Fenspace and helped get Stellvia up and running. As documented in Legend of Galactic Girls. If the Catalog exists, Fenspace is part of the same metacontinuity as DW. In fact, as that linked diagram indicates, Fenspace has been considered part of that metacontinuity for the last five years. Quod erat demonstrandum, baby. Resurrections may be possible. However, they are, in most magic systems, very, very difficult... and some of those you wind up talking to The Powers to make it happen, and you end up bargaining with them to do it.
In other words, it might eventually happen... but given the learning curve, and where Resurrection typically falls on that curve, we're not likely to have such an instance in Fenspace for a couple of decades. And even when it occurs the first time, it might be something of an accident or otherwise impossibly to reproduce initially, since the sample size is likely to be one.
--
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
Bob Schroeck Wrote:If you disagree, then you have to ignore the Catalog in its entirety. Because it is based on the package of technologies gifted to Sylia Stingray by Legion in Drunkard's Walk II, brought to Fenspace by Lisa "Sailor Loon" Vanette and her companions, who are following Doug and who arrived in Fenspace because Doug was in Fenspace and helped get Stellvia up and running. As documented in Legend of Galactic Girls. If the Catalog exists, Fenspace is part of the same metacontinuity as DW. In fact, as that linked diagram indicates, Fenspace has been considered part of that metacontinuity for the last five years. Quod erat demonstrandum, baby. I would call your chain of arguments a slippery slope... 
Fenspace primary rule is "the rules are what we need for OUR plot"...
it might be good to have a look at what DW's did with its magic, but we are not bound to it. If we decide one of the rules doesn't fit Fenspace, we can just say "oh, our catalog came from a universe very similar to the DW's one, with just some changes"... or that it came from a parallel dimension of it... or even that the rules of magic are not quite the same for each dimension and the visitors just had a "bubble of known mana" with them when they came to Fenspace.
Maybe we will even decide "hey yes, we take what DW made up", but thats up to us.
---
About Resurrection... I must admit I am not worried about a Resurrection spell at all. It will be a very complicated spell and it will take decades to get right (I don't want even to imagine how botched resurrection spells look like)... at that time Fenspace has the technology to backup and restore people anyways (if they want to be backuped).
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Am I right in that the primary point of contention is about letting DW dictate magical effects that must be allowed? Just because something is possible in a world connected to Fenspace (and Fenspace was visited by Doug and the Girls; that much is impossible to deny) doesn't mean it's possible in Fenspace. On the other hand (I've clearly been reading too much ponyfic; I almost wrote "other hoof" there), I think Bob is primarily objecting to hard artificial limits on what magic can or cannot do, which position I completely agree with. Because hey, it's Magic. It's not free, it takes real time and effort, but the whole point of magic is that if you have enough strength and cunning, anything is possible.
If you want a Resurrection spell, it isn't trivial, but it is certainly do-ble, if hard work.
If souls or spirits exist in Fenspace, which seems likely, you're going to want that if you plan to get the same person back. If the soul has "gone onwards" then you may need to negotiate with any guardians of where the soul has gone. There may or may not be guardians of life and death, or fate, who have something to say about recently dead people being restored to life. You may even have to negotiate with a celestial bureaucracy. This may or may not be influenced by the religion the person followed in life, and/or the religion or beliefs of the person doing the resurrection.
Typically there is a 'grace period' of three to ten days while the soul is still around, before leaving, and in this period the soul typically has a useful level of connection to the previous body. There may be ways to extend this period, if rituals are done before the end of it. There are typically forms of death, such as enough fire, which sever the connection of the soul to the body, and there are typically magical attacks which do similar.
There are sometimes ways of ensuring you can't do conventional resurrections, such as rituals which cause the soul to go immediately "onwards", or catching and trapping souls (I'd think this could be too dystopian for Fenspace), or even deliberately reincarnating the soul into a new life (very likely with no memory of the previous one). Souls having reincarnated as part of the natural process of life and death may well mean that they are not available for a (conventional) resurrection.
There don't need to be souls or spirits in a setting for resurrection to take place - in fact a lack of them may make things a lot easier. Without a soul needing to be messed with you just need to worry about the mind and body.
From a magical engineering point of view bodies are easier to manage, you just need a pattern or a link, something like blood or once-living flesh is easiest, or the traditional hair, fluid (spit or blood) and (finger) nail. Sometimes a personal object, important or with long association, is enough. Relatives can be very useful here, or the person who killed the body, or even the weapon which killed the body. Then there is the matter of Names, which is a whole area in itself. Producing an empty body, maybe with all the scars and reflexes the body had in previous life isn't trivial, but it certainly isn't impossible.
Minds are more tricky. They tend to be assumed to be (after death) indivisible units, and 'hooking' a mind becomes a lot easier if you've got something strongly associated with it, like something the mind created in life, such as a book, even a letter - it may well be that once you've got access to any soul or spirit the mind is dragged along automagically. Magically taking copies of minds isn't unknown, though it is more commonly done while the person is still living - doing it after death is much more like hard work, though pulling a copy off a soul or spirit may be do-able. For the really ambitious 'time skrying' may mean they can look back down someone's timeline, and make a copy of how their mind was at some particular date - this normally isn't a fast process, and may well best be done while someone's asleep. Minds can be cooperative in the right circumstances, and might 'jump' into something like a recording crystal or pool.
Putting body, mind and soul or spirit together into something which can live a normal life is often glossed over. There may be issues of fate or destiny that may make the process more difficult. Tricking the world into believing this is a conventional birth might suit some approaches. Or the "still has unfinished work to do" may be used. If the soul or spirit is unwilling to be resurrected then they may get a veto - continuing a resurrection after this (which may not even be possible with the simpler 'packaged' resurrection approaches) may give you the body and mind you want, but a new person, who will likely develop over time their own new purposes and motivations ("free soul with every new incarnation"). Producing an 'instant adult' like this can really upset the natural process of life and death, or the guardians of this, in some settings.
Then there are wonderful issues of AIs and souls or spirits - these are often assumed to be equivalent to biological beings, with a soul or spirit as long as you're dealing with something more than a glorified expert system. Resurrecting an AI may be quite feasible, but need a slightly different approach.
So, resurrection can be a thoroughly explored area of magical engineering! Not like these 'cast and pray' approaches! [grin]
META: You can see from the above that some people have arguably spent far too time thinking about resurrection in tabletop gaming situations or fantasy literature. But, as always, it depends on the sorts of stories you are trying to tell. One reason for posting this is to show an alternative to the 'spell list' approach to magic.
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The first 'application' of manatech is a reference manatronic computer that, in theory, anyone can build?
Well there's the solution to the 'problem' of who can do it right there. Some people are born with it, some need a hardware assist to do it. Either cybernetic, or not.
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Dartz Wrote:The first 'application' of manatech is a reference manatronic computer that, in theory, anyone can build? What would you expect that computer to do? "Detect Magic"? "Analyse Magic"? Be a computer version of a grimoire/spell book/personal magical journal? Run an AI (sub-sentient level) to help people do magic?
Quote:Well there's the solution to the 'problem' of who can do it right there.
Some people are born with it, some need a hardware assist to do it.
Either cybernetic, or not.
That makes sense to me. All the (B5) technomages, with their cyber implants that let them fake-up magic using tech, in Fenspace, are they using tech, magic, or some strange hybrid of the two?
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"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
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It's simple. There is no difference.
Everyone's going to have to adapt their business models to account for it in some way. Which means everyone's going to have to learn it in some way.
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If magic is the fifth fundamental force, every scientist and engineer will need to learn at least the basics.
This (eventually) may be what is needed to stucdy, scientifically, handwavium, and how to properly canlculate and reproduce results and quirks .it's not that the wave is sentient or chaotic, it's that they lacked a full undestanding of physics.
(and when even then they get unexpected results, Mads may postulate the existence of a, as yet unknownw, sixth fundamental force?)
So, instead of magic wands for everyone, it is Interwave cell phones with a grimoire app, and an AI called 'Igor' that helps you out with you handwavium control and magic use requirements? [grin]
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Proginoskes Wrote:Am I right in that the primary point of contention is about letting DW dictate magical effects that must be allowed? Just because something is possible in a world connected to Fenspace (and Fenspace was visited by Doug and the Girls; that much is impossible to deny) doesn't mean it's possible in Fenspace. On the other hand (I've clearly been reading too much ponyfic; I almost wrote "other hoof" there), I think Bob is primarily objecting to hard artificial limits on what magic can or cannot do, which position I completely agree with. Because hey, it's Magic. It's not free, it takes real time and effort, but the whole point of magic is that if you have enough strength and cunning, anything is possible. I was primarily disagreeing with dismissing the DW-Fenspace connection out of hand. The connection is canon, to the point that if we want to dump it, we have to dump LOGG, some of Stellvia's backstory, and the Catalogue itself -- which makes the impact of DW on magic in Fenspace utterly moot.
But yes, I was also objecting to hard-and-fast -- but worse, utterly arbitrary -- rules of what can and can't be allowed. The point of the UTM is that possible/impossible is mainly defined by the model you use to access magic, not by magic itself. One thing that maybe I should add to descriptions of the UTM, though, is that there's something like a fusion of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at play with magic -- you can't make a system that's all possible and no impossible. You must have tradeoffs somewhere -- phenomenal cosmic power, but itty-bitty living space.
On the resurrection issue, remember that the greater metacontinuum also includes at least one Buffyverse, where it's possible to use a magical ritual to yank a soul out of the afterlife and shove it back into its body months and even years after death... By extension, with the right system, that should be possible in Fenspace as well.
(Unrelated to nothing else: No one got the Thomas Dolby joke in my last post in this thread? I'm going to go sob in a corner now. )
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Dartz Wrote:Non-lethal magic has some unique consequences...
It might make it's practitioners more blast-happy when they know they can't hurt their target, compared to conventional fighters who have to think very carefully about whether it's worth risking killing someone over the issue. Hello, Nanoha...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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Bob Schroeck Wrote:If you disagree, then you have to ignore the Catalog in its entirety. Because it is based on the package of technologies gifted to Sylia Stingray by Legion in Drunkard's Walk II, brought to Fenspace by Lisa "Sailor Loon" Vanette and her companions, who are following Doug and who arrived in Fenspace because Doug was in Fenspace and helped get Stellvia up and running. As documented in Legend of Galactic Girls. If the Catalog exists, Fenspace is part of the same metacontinuity as DW. In fact, as that linked diagram indicates, Fenspace has been considered part of that metacontinuity for the last five years. Quod erat demonstrandum, baby. HRogge Wrote:I would call your chain of arguments a slippery slope...
Fenspace primary rule is "the rules are what we need for OUR plot"...
I need a very-difficult-but-not-impossible-to-open portal to Warriors' World for the StellviaCorp "meta-plot".
So, yeah... we're part of the Legion's Quest metacontinuity.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
robkelk Wrote:I need a very-difficult-but-not-impossible-to-open portal to Warriors' World for the StellviaCorp "meta-plot".
So, yeah... we're part of the Legion's Quest metacontinuity.
*sigh*
as long as this doesn't necessarily bind "Fenspace universe" magic rules... because some TV shows have really insane magic that would upset the balance of Fenspace quite a bit. And some guidelines "what goes, what does not" are necessary for a shared worldbuilding project.
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Now, a thought...
The Interdimensional Intrusion Incident has established that there's at least one Potterverse in the metacontinuity, and (by canon) magical time travel works in Potterverses.
Magical time travel is said to be impossible in Nanohaverses. (At least, it is in the "TV-and-manga Nanohaverse;" I don't yet know about the preceding "game Nanohaverse" or the subsequent "movie Nanohaverse.") But I did a Steplet where Doug and Lindy spoke to each other, face to face...
How do we reconcile these? Are there particular "local conditions" that apply in only parts of the metaverse? (This could make the SME Bogosities' personality-changes one of these local conditions...) Are Midchildian research-mages mistaken, despite how much they know about magic? (This puts them in the company of the Vulcan Science Council... ) Are Potterverse "time travelers" actually jumping into closely-parallel universes?
I assume there are other, similar questions about mismatching universes in the multiverse...
So, once again, I see the need for a coherent set of rules - but now I see that they need to allow for fringe cases.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Proginoskes Wrote:On the other hand (I've clearly been reading too much ponyfic; I almost wrote "other hoof" there), I think Bob is primarily objecting to hard artificial limits on what magic can or cannot do, which position I completely agree with. Because hey, it's Magic. It's not free, it takes real time and effort, but the whole point of magic is that if you have enough strength and cunning, anything is possible.
So "with enough strength and cunning, Fen X will cast his spell and ignite Jupiter into a sun?
Or produce a forcefield which will be impervious to anything except certain magic? Or have a magic attack that can only countered by magic, not by any kind of (wave)tech ?
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HRogge Wrote:So "with enough strength and cunning, Fen X will cast his spell and ignite Jupiter into a sun?
Or produce a forcefield which will be impervious to anything except certain magic? Or have a magic attack that can only countered by magic, not by any kind of (wave)tech ? How much mana is there in Fenspace?
(Logging off now - have to do what I'm paid to do.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
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Quote:So "with enough strength and cunning, Fen X will cast his spell and ignite Jupiter into a sun?
Sure, eventually the understanding of manadynamics will be at a point where such a thing is possible. By the point it's possible, however, civilization (or the species) will have changed to the point where it won't happen. Maybe there'll be strong protective wards laid down by the local EPA, maybe the local aurors spend their time fending off would-be terraformers, maybe it happens every other Tuesday and the Sorcerer Supreme rewinds reality every time, or hell maybe they ignited Jupiter with wavetech or hardtech methods twenty years back and all this nonsense is aimed at reversing that.
The point of that little diatribe is this: you're working on the assumption that "magic exists" automatically equals "everybody's suddenly an archmage." That's kind of a dumb assumption.
To all: The LORD your Mod has heard your cries, and initial rulings will be coming forthwith. Tonight at the earliest/latest, I think.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Quote:robkelk wrote:
HRogge Wrote:I would call your chain of arguments a slippery slope...
Fenspace primary rule is "the rules are what we need for OUR plot"...
I need a very-difficult-but-not-impossible-to-open portal to Warriors' World for the StellviaCorp "meta-plot".
So, yeah... we're part of the Legion's Quest metacontinuity. If you want a suggestion...
Route your portal through the Amber & Chaos Shadow (multi)verse. Doing that is sufficiently difficult and risky that you probably won't do it more than once.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Amber
'burning' a single-use plot token in doing so might be worthwhile, say from an Amberite who visits Fenspace. (Yes, that might be possible in one story line I'm working on.)
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
M Fnord Wrote:The point of that little diatribe is this: you're working on the assumption that "magic exists" automatically equals "everybody's suddenly an archmage." That's kind of a dumb assumption. So, where will people be going for the "Pencil Levitation 101" classes? [grin]
And, yes, expecting most people to learn more than that, or even that much, is optimistic.
In Fenspace I suspect the risk of the "artificial archmage" is likely more of an issue, with the possible risk of the magical equivalent of the Singularity.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
robkelk Wrote:I assume there are other, similar questions about mismatching universes in the multiverse...
So, once again, I see the need for a coherent set of rules - but now I see that they need to allow for fringe cases. robkelk Wrote:How much mana is there in Fenspace? Exactly... not necessarily a ruleset "what can be done with magic" but more something on the meta-level "what do we want to allow for Season 3 for magic"
M Fnord Wrote:The point of that little diatribe is this: you're working on the assumption that "magic exists" automatically equals "everybody's suddenly an archmage." That's kind of a dumb assumption Sure...
exaggeration helps to explain a point.
Quote:To all: The LORD your Mod has heard your cries, and initial rulings will be coming forthwith. Tonight at the earliest/latest, I think.
Some rough guidelines would be perfect. 
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robkelk Wrote:Are there particular "local conditions" that apply in only parts of the metaverse? Wait, is this under debate? It makes absolutely no sense that universes can be sufficiently different that nonmagical technology may not work across universe boundaries (it was outright stated that some items in the Whole Fenspace Catalog simply don't work in Fenspace), but magic is invariant. Doug and the Girls carry their rules with them, remember. Just because they can do something and they came here doesn't mean that a Fenspace-native mage can do it. (I know this is kind of counter to my earlier "anything is possible" stance, but my real point is that we shouldn't deny or permit anything to Fenspace mages based on the rules elsewhere in the metacontinuity. We need to decide on our own rules.)
Ace Dreamer Wrote:So, instead of magic wands for everyone, it is Interwave cell phones with a grimoire app, and an AI called 'Igor' that helps you out with you handwavium control and magic use requirements? Phh...
It will be a Wizard built wand with holographic interface, Interwave access and low level AIs of the Hogwarts teachers telling you what you do wrong!
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I don't know. I like the dichotomy between inherent and technological mages.
Inherent mages are really limited only by training, nerve and practice and what they want to attempt. Can generally pull anything out of a hat in a desperate pinch. Can be a bit 'wild', but much free-r and more able to experiment. They can choose their magical system. Or eventually invent their own. They've basically got a lot more freedom.
Technical 'mages' are always limited by the quality of hardware they use, power source, and the quality of design work gone into it. They're more rigidly stuck to what known manatech can work. But, pull the trigger, get your spell. Get technology that can be programmed on the fly with new 'spells', or even autogenerate based on the user's specific intent and the line between natural archmage and technomage starts to blur to the point where manatech is just another magic system with it's own inherent restrictions and requirements in places on users. (Like maintenance, programming, understanding the technology and the device to program it, etc.)
I'm trying not to go Nanoha on it. Someone elses fandom. But that sort of looks like where this train of thought's ending up.
Although there is a small moral question that invokes.
A mage and a mundane have an argument. The mage decides the mundane's not getting it and needs to have some understanding shot into them. If a mage fires off a non-lethal spell that'll knock out a mundane like a punch to the face, and the mundane fires back with a decent handgun that'll probably kill the mage..... has the mundane used excessive force to defend themselves?
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M Fnord Wrote:, maybe it happens every other Tuesday and the Sorcerer Supreme rewinds reality every time,
Damm it, how did you discover it? I knew that having a faction calling themselves "the Soviets" and then not checking if they have a KGB was an error...
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